Fenix Led Me to Ellie
from the Introduction

Because of Fenix’s online family, we’ve raised funds for countless rescues and helped many shelter dogs find their forever homes. In June 2024, a rescue in Santa Paula reached out about a tiny blue heeler puppy with the same neurological condition as Fenix, asking if I could share her story. I had no intention of bringing her home. But the moment I met Ellie at the Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center, I just knew.

Like with Fenix, tears welled in my eyes, the kind that come from somewhere deeper than logic or reason. Something in me recognized her. She was meant to be ours. Her little body told the story of all she’d been through, frail, sores from falling, and unable to walk well. From the very beginning, she broke me wide open. Ellie didn’t come into my life to make it easier. She came to awaken me—to stretch me, to heal parts of me I didn’t know were still hurting, and to call me into a purpose I hadn’t yet dared to live.

Grief is the Worst. And It’s Our Greatest Gift.
from Chapter 1 • The Paradox and Purpose of Pet Grief

Falling in love with a profoundly disabled, sweet, and sassy puppy, caring for her night and day for two months and two days, and then holding her as she was euthanized just days before her half-birthday… cracked me open in ways I never expected. I had already done so much grief work, and spent my days supporting others  in healing their own grief and trauma. I thought I understood what it meant to heal. But in saying goodbye to Ellie’s fur body, she helped me find a missing piece of myself I hadn’t even known was gone, a piece I now believe our animals come into our lives to help us remember and reclaim. 

My experiences of grief, first with Mum, and then with Ellie, have been both the worst and the greatest experiences of my life. They’ve taken me to the darkest edges of my consciousness and invited me to discover just how bright, bold, and brave my Light and loving nature truly are. For years, grief triggered dysfunction and addiction in my life. But eventually, it became the springboard for my greatest healing, teaching me how to release the patterns that once kept me trapped. Nothing else in life has stretched me, taught me, or brought me closer to beauty and joy the way grief has. It invites me into deeper connection with others. It awakens my inner wisdom. And it gives me the courage to trust my intuition and co-create a life I love.

Love and Grief Don’t Follow Logic—But They Lead Us Home

Bringing Ellie home made no logical sense. My life was already overwhelming, I had family visiting for months, and I was stretched too thin. Taking on another special-needs animal, especially one with such a severe neurological condition, seemed impossible. But my intuition told me otherwise.

The healing work I’d done through grieving Mum shaped that intuition. If I hadn’t faced that grief in my thirties, I wouldn’t have the clarity and courage I have today. That deep inner knowing guided me to choose love, even when it felt impossible. And while following that voice isn’t always easy, I know it leads to miracles and magic.

Everyone told me not to bring Ellie home. Everyone.

And the story I’m about to share isn’t an easy one. But it’s been one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, one I wouldn’t trade for anything. Caring for Ellie pushed me to my limits, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Every day, I physically guided her to walk, eat, go to the bathroom and play. And we would take her around the neighborhood in her stroller too. Even something as small as holding a teething toy was a challenge for her, so I’d lie beside her, gently helping her keep it in her mouth as she chewed through the pain.

Sometimes, when we’re called to do the impossible, we discover superhuman reserves of love and courage. Ellie broke me open into a devotion I had never known before. I knew this journey would be hard, but I never imagined how much it would ask of me, or how much it would give in return. Most of all, Ellie came to help me find a missing piece in me. She came to help me find my voice. To lead me home to the bigness of my courage. To remind me, every day, to keep showing up, keep sharing, keep serving. And she’s still here, guiding me with that exact blend of sass and sweetness I loved so much.

The Day Everything Changed
from Chapter 3 • Allowing Ourselves to Be Shaken: A Somatic and Spiritual Approach

Ellie, my Rainbow Daughter, came into my life as a tiny, neurologically disabled puppy. For two months and two days, my world revolved around her.

It was exhausting and often heartbreaking, but also one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

She’d been dumped at a gas station in a cardboard box when she was just eight weeks old. Rescued by SPARC, the Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center, Ellie was given love, care, and a chance. I began fostering her knowing it wouldn’t be easy. But I never imagined it would be so short.

I’ll never forget the moment I got the results from her MRI. The neurologist explained that Ellie didn’t just have cerebellar hypoplasia, she also had rapidly progressing hydrocephalus. Her brain was filling with fluid. She was living in constant pain, constant fear. The only recommendation was euthanasia.

Time stopped. I stopped. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe. Everything felt unreal. I was floating outside my body in a parallel world, watching life happen, disconnected from it. And yet, somehow, the decision to let her go came with crystal clarity. Her aggression, her anxiety, and her unexplainable behaviors, they weren’t flaws. They were symptoms of suffering. She was not okay. And it was getting worse.

I asked if I could have one more day with her. To take her home. To hold her. To feed her her favorite treats. To walk her through the garden one last time, suspending her hips so she could sniff and explore like any other dog. But the neurologist gently, but firmly told me: it wouldn’t be peaceful. Coming out of anesthesia would be disorienting. Taking her off pain meds only to bring her back the next day would add suffering, not comfort.

So my husband drove us back to the vet. I sobbed the entire way, cradling her toys and treats. I stumbled into the clinic, a wreck. I didn’t try to hold it together. Those days of abandoning myself and my feelings were over.

We were taken into a softly lit room made for goodbyes. After a few minutes, they placed Ellie in my arms and told us to take our time. We whispered to her. Kissed her face. Breathed her in. Said all the things we wanted her to know. We sobbed. And sobbed.

And then… we said we were ready.

Because she still had a port from her MRI, the euthanasia was seamless. I held her as they administered the injections. I let the tears pour down my face — sometimes audibly, sometimes silently. I felt gratitude and sorrow erupting at the same time. I didn’t hold anything back. I smiled as I breathed in her fur, and I sobbed as I let her cross that Rainbow Bridge.

In the parking lot, I collapsed into my husband’s arms. I let myself sob. I let myself be held. I let myself break wide open.

Fenix was waiting in the car. I curled up beside him in the back seat and we drove to the beach, his favorite place, where Ellie had never been able to go. (We tried to take her once but all the sounds, the wind, was way too much for her to handle). When we got to the overcast and empty beach, we watched Fenix run and play, full of life. My husband had shared that’s how he saw Ellie the moment she passed over the Rainbow Bridge. Joyous and free.

That day was a rollercoaster, grief, laughter, surrender, awe. I canceled everything. Clients, obligations, to-dos. I climbed into bed, wrapped in the sheets she and I had shared, and just felt it all. The shock. The loss. The depth of my love. The fullness of our love.

Living Without Ellie's Fur Body
from Chapter 4 • How to Feel and Release Emotion

Ellie’s fur body needed me more than most dogs ever need a human. She couldn’t walk on her own. She couldn’t even stand. I helped her pee and poop. I held her chew toys and treats in her mouth. I supported her body so she could stand and eat at her little “Fluff Trough®”—a raised food bowl that made it easier for her to eat while standing. Without it, mealtimes would have been so much harder.

At first, she could still get around a little before falling. But as time passed, even that faded until she couldn’t get up at all without me. And for the last month or more of her life, Ellie was also blind.

Most mornings began around 5:30 a.m. She would stir in her crib beside my bed, and I’d lift her up and carry her to the bathroom. Helping Ellie “use the bathroom” was one of the most challenging dances we shared. Like every dog, she would circle before settling into position. Only she couldn’t do it alone. I had to spin with her, like a partner in a ballroom routine, catching her at just the right moment before she plopped down.

Some days were brutal. On mornings when I hadn’t slept because I’d been up with her, or when she growled at me as I tried to feed her, or when our bathroom dance was more messy than graceful, I cried in exhaustion and despair.

And some days were magic. We’d fall into rhythm, her movements and mine aligning, as though we were truly one body. Those days felt strangely elegant and profoundly beautiful.

My favorite time came after our morning bathroom dance. I’d bring her back to bed, and she would nestle into my side. I would half-meditate, half-replace the chew toy in her mouth every few seconds, because she couldn’t hold it herself. Those mornings were quiet, tender, peaceful. I miss them more than anything. I knew she felt safe and loved.

During the day, we danced again and again. I held her perfect little hips and followed her lead. Sometimes I let her try to walk and fall. Other times, I held her steady so she could sniff the garden or explore the neighborhood, just to feel like a dog. My back still aches from those hours, but I would give anything for one more of those back-breaking dances with her.

In her last couple of weeks, Ellie became increasingly sensitive to sound. On our final day together, we were outside dancing in the backyard. But even the smallest noise sent her into a frenzy—growling, trembling, spinning. It wasn’t new, but it was escalating more. The morning I took her in for her MRI, I wanted her to have a little play on the soft green grass outside the vet. But just as I grabbed her out of the car and put her in her stroller, a loud motorcycle roared past. The noise triggered the most intense display of fear and aggression I had ever seen in her—growling, trembling, utterly terrified.

While I would have loved for our final conscious moment together to be a peaceful play in the grass, I’m strangely grateful for what happened. It was as if the Universe wanted me to see clearly just how not okay she was, that her brain was so easily triggered into terror now, leaving her in pain and fear of everything around her. The intensity of that moment gave me the sign I needed to truly know she was ready to be free of her body.

Looking back, I can see how much I previously didn’t want to face what was happening. My perception was clouded by hope. I wanted her to live so badly that I couldn’t allow myself to imagine that the MRI results might actually ask us to let her go. So while it might seem like I should have been prepared, I wasn’t. And in all honesty, there is no preparing. I’ve supported so many people through this process, and everyone says the same thing in different words: I thought I was prepared. But I wasn’t.

The first week without her physical presence was excruciating, and strangely beautiful. I swung between two extremes: moments of peace and subtle joy, knowing she was free, and waves of despair so deep they frightened me, accompanied by physical pain in my heart that felt almost unbearable.

Towards the end of that first week, I began to feel my head above water. I was able to go to the shops, and I even did some client sessions. But what made those first weeks so painful, and also so valuable for healing, was being in the world we had shared together. Our whole house had become Ellie’s sanctuary. We turned every room into a soft play space—pillows piled in the bedroom, my office, my husband’s studio, the back deck, even a portable setup we carried between the kitchen and living room. It was the only way to keep her safe when she hurled or propelled herself across the floor. So as I faced the task of putting our house back together, I also allowed myself to feel and heal. My husband offered to do much of it, and I gratefully accepted. But in our bedroom and my office, I needed to do it myself. I wanted to honor the sacred spaces we had created together. To sit with the memories. To cry, to smile, to let myself feel.

When Ellie Crossed the Rainbow Bridge, I Couldn’t Stop Replaying Everything
from Chapter 6 • Feeling for Healing™

It felt like a loop I couldn’t break. The pain of “losing” Ellie would hit me, and before I could even sit with it, my mind would start racing, analyzing, questioning, searching for what I could have done differently. Did I make the right decision? Did I really do everything I could? My brain kept cycling through the details, trying to rewrite the past. This is the kind of suffering we create—and the kind we can unlearn.

In those early days, I was desperate for peace. Like so many of us, I looked for it through logic and reason, trying to make sure I had done the “right” thing. But peace doesn’t live there. As humans, we cling to control, believing that if we can just figure things out, we’ll finally feel okay. Yet what we’re really longing for isn’t control at all, it’s love, safety, and the feeling of being held by something greater than our understanding.

Honestly, this part of being human is frustrating. In my head, I knew I had done right by Ellie. I gave her everything, hours of care, attention, love. I lived and breathed for that perfect, precious bundle of fur. But that kind of knowing didn’t stop the waves of doubt. Early on, I felt wrong, uneasy, guilt-ridden, even ashamed. And I was also dealing with another layer of guilt, equally irrational and painful - the guilt of giving her up.

I had been preparing to send Ellie to a new home in Ohio. I was fostering to adopt, and as much as I wanted it to work with Fenix, it wasn’t a good fit. His joy and energy changed, and I could feel his unhappiness. I wanted Ellie to have a life filled with love and ease, so I began looking for her forever home, and I found one.

Michael in Ohio was perfect. He adored dogs and had three gentle Souls who welcomed new friends. His oldest, Mac, was a natural mentor to young dogs, just what Ellie needed. And when we learned that Ellie was blind, it seemed even more perfect, because one of Michael’s dogs, Zeus, was also blind.

Ohio was far, but after reaching out to every rescue I could find, his home was the only real option. I started preparing for her flight and booked an MRI to make sure she could travel safely. But the results changed everything. Ellie’s neurological condition was far worse than I realized. Her growling and aggression, it wasn’t misbehavior; it was suffering. And as painful as it was to face, the most loving choice was to let her go.

Still, even knowing that, I sometimes feel that murky shame in my stomach, the ache of wondering if I failed her.

As highly sensitive, empathetic beings, we often care so deeply that we start believing we’re responsible for saving others. So when something goes wrong, we instinctively take on guilt and shame, even when we know we’ve done our best.

The truth is, our minds aren’t the rational machines we imagine them to be. They’re shaped by emotion and old conditioning. To break free from the spiraling of guilt and self-blame, we have to shift from analyzing our pain to softening toward it, with compassion, with tenderness, with the gentle love of our Huge Heart.

Ellie Helped Me Heal Unresolved Sexual Trauma from My Childhood
from Chapter 7 • Inner Child Healing


I’m sorry if this is hard to read, it’s definitely not easy to share, but I’m so grateful to be sharing it, and I’m so incredibly thankful that you’re here with me, and Ellie. There were many moments of profound healing while I was caring for Ellie, but I want to share one in particular.

In Ellie’s final weeks, she would go into these violent spirals on the ground. Her limbs would flail uncontrollably, and she would spin in circles, her body moving a million miles an hour. Since she couldn’t get up on her own, she would end up spinning in place on the floor. I couldn’t hold her up during these moments because it was too dangerous.

After these tough episodes, I would finally put her down to nap and then I would just collapse. Sometimes with my husband holding me and I would share this process out-loud with him. Or I would crawl into bed, or my sacred healing chair, and I would do the Guided Experience 6. This happened many times. Both while she was alive and after she passed over the Rainbow Bridge.

The first time was a few weeks before she passed. I was allowing myself to feel and express this outrageous pain inside, and all of a sudden I had this vision of being held down while being raped when I was sixteen. It was the first time I had “intercourse”. And I was really drunk, alone on a dark beach with no one in sight. I knew my abuser, and so after saying no, and pushing back, I didn’t fight, or scream. I just let myself be pinned and raped.

Watching Ellie’s pain and struggle brought back flashbacks of being pinned to the ground, of that same desperate energy in me wanting to get up and escape, yet being held down. Not just by his body weight, but by my own decision not to fight, not to scream, to simply endure it.

In some wild way, Ellie’s fury freed me. Ellie’s violent struggle somehow stirred awake the violent, yet fiercely hopeful, unresolved struggle inside of me. She helped me find that place inside of me that also never gives up.

I didn’t fight back the way I wanted to. But Ellie helped me reconnect with the part of me that wanted to scream and stand up for myself. And so I screamed. And I raged. And I allowed that sixteen year old Zoe to say what she needed to say in my healing book. And I heard her. I honored her. And I loved her.

After Ellie passed, this same memory kept resurfacing during my grievealing process. But the more I allowed it and felt it with fierce compassion, the more it began to transform. First, I moved from rage and fury into deep sadness and shame. Then, as I continued to allow and stay present, the sadness softened. And it gave way to something unexpected: a rising wave of love, compassion, and resolution. And eventually, a deep sense of worthiness and freedom.

Ellie Helped Me Find My Courage and My Compassion
from Chapter 8 • They Are the Best in Us

I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved Ellie. There were many reasons for this, but two in particular.

The first came through her neurological disease. Because of the pain and fear she felt, Ellie often growled at me. At first it was painful and confusing, and without my mentor Carol Neil from Soul 2 Soul Dog, the end of this story might have been very different. She helped me see: It’s not about you. A growl simply means, I’m not okay right now. That realization shifted so much for me. 

As I began to feel more comfortable in her discomfort, and began to feel more neutral when she would growl and be aggressive, I found a deeper level of compassion and caring that began to transform the entire way I saw the world. And while I had already had this perspective of human psychology, that hurt humans hurt humans, I finally began to see the truth beneath negative behavior: I’m not okay right now. Ellie gave me an embodied, lived experience that upgraded both my head and my heart for the better.

The second reason came through the sheer amount of care Ellie required. For two months and two days, my entire life revolved around her. I held her up to eat, to pee, to poop. I helped her wobble across the room, catching her again and again when she fell, and feeling the pain in my heart in the moments when I didn’t. I poured my energy into every ounce of her well-being. I had never been so fully invested in another being, both in time and in the intensity of my love. It stretched me to my edges. And while so much of that felt like pure survival, it was only later, in the aching absence of her 24/7 presence, that I began to see her power more clearly. Only then could I feel the honor and privilege it had been to walk beside her.

Through it all, Ellie called forth courage I didn’t know I had and compassion deeper than I thought possible. I was in awe of her own courage, how she would fall a hundred times in a row and still keep trying to rise. And I was touched by her sweetness, how after every nap, she’d wriggle with joy, overflowing with delight just to see me again.

Ellie showed me that courage and compassion aren’t abstract virtues; they’re muscles built in the hardest moments. They live in us when we choose to keep showing up, to keep loving, even when it’s messy, exhausting, or heartbreaking. She mirrored me back to myself, and in doing so, helped me reclaim the best of who I am.

This is the profound gift our animals give us. They don’t just receive our love, they help us remember the Love that we are. They awaken our courage, they deepen our compassion, and they return us to the qualities of our hearts we may have forgotten were always there.

You can read my other stories about Ellie, both while she had her fur body and beyond in The Blue Healer: A Somatic and Spiritual Guide to Healing Pet Grief.